The title of this blog post has been the bane of my existence for a while now.

I hate the stupid hashtag that all new college students have adopted as their go to caption this year. The implications are not what college is about. Sure, using this caption is cute and a little sarcastic, and yes, maybe I shouldn’t take it so seriously, but as an introvert, it makes me fear for my future social interactions.

Firstly, saying #nonewfriends implies that you don’t plan on establishing any new friendship, like ever. What’s up with that? I expect, especially from social people, that they always want to make new friends. I acknowledge that having a solid squad that you can trust is essential part of living as a college student. However, another essential part is being able to grow as an individual, learn new things, and make new friends. By using this hashtag you’ll probably convince yourself that meeting new people has become irrelevant. Unfortunately, that’s not how life works. If I’ve learned anything this year, it’s that you need to make as many diverse friends as possible. Having a diverse allows for you to become your own person. It also means that you won’t always end up in your room on a Friday night if your only two “old” friends are doing something that you aren’t a part of.

Also, if the phrase doesn’t tunnel your vision on the view of who can be your friend, it may scare away people who wanted to be your friends. I’m speaking from the side of one of those scared away people. As an introvert, I won’t attempt to talk to someone who has established that they are in a solid friend group. Mostly, because I don’t want to infiltrate such a strong group, but also because I already know that you don’t really care about being friends with me. Introverts normally only get close to a few people, but there are a large group of people we would like to be friends with. However, we won’t reach out to you if we know it would be a waste of our time to pursue your friendship.